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The fact of the matter is that in the world today many human beings unfortunately aren't able to live flourishing
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lives, so Humanists view practical action as
so important in order to give everybody the opportunity
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to live lives that are well lived, enjoyable,
and happy - and the only way that can be guaranteed
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is by giving them freedom of choice to live their lives in the way that they think is best,
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so long as they do no harm to others.
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Humanists UK, in its campaigning work, tends to focus on issues where there is disagreement
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between humanists and non-religious people, and the position taken by many religious groups.
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The need for upholding human rights and equality for all, including around LGBT rights, for example,
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looking at reform of marriage law, women's rights, or it could focus on specific issues like abortion and
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assisted dying, where the ethical view that non-religious people tend to take is different from that
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that many religious groups hold to. We campaign for a secular state that treats everybody
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equally regardless of religion and belief, which means focussing on the need for no discrimination
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in the provision of public services on the
basis of religion; for no religious representatives
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sitting as of right in parliament, as Bishops do in the House of Lords, and an inclusive school system
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with no discrimination in admissions, for example. A third of state funded schools are religious and
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many of these schools discriminate in terms of who they admit: the religion pupils or their parents;
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who they employ as teachers and how they teach
the school curriculum in subjects like religious
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education and sex and relationships education.
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Humanist UK has been
doing campaign work for a very long time, so
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in the 60s we were involved in a campaign
that led to the Abortion Act - that meant that
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abortion became legally available in Britain - and the decriminalisation of homosexuality.
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More recently, in 2008 England and Wales' blasphemy
laws were repealed which was a campaign we
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were very involved in. 2013 saw the legalisation
of same sex marriages in England and Wales
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and that was shortly followed by Scotland, and humanist marriages have also gained legal recognition
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in Scotland and the government has powers
to do the same in England and Wales too. We've
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been very involved in recent years against
the teaching of creationism as scientifically
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valid in the school curriculum, and requiring every state school to teach evolution instead, something that
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has now been successful; and a few years ago
we also took a successful legal case to establish
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that non-religious views, humanism, have to be treated equally to the major religions in the school curriculum.